Certified Resume Writer Consolidates a 30-Year Career

How a marketing executive re-did his resume with the help of a professional resume writer.

Even for a marketer used to taglines and elevator pitches, drilling 30 years of experience into two pages can be a conundrum.

That’s what Ted ran in to when articulating his 30-plus year career in marketing, branding and business development. He’d been everything from a publisher for a religious music and book business to a chief marketing officer. He’d even marketed greeting cards and co-founded a business venture.

This man of many hats didn’t know where to start.

Ted also had an issue locating marketing jobs in an area that was new to him. Having recently relocated to southern Florida from Colorado, Ted knew that he needed some help, and not just because of location.

Working with Ladders, professional resume writer Ken Moore took on the challenge of consolidating a decade’s worth of varied experience.

“He didn’t have a lengthy resume, but it went back as far as 1974 in just two pages. There was a lot of detail buried in the original version, as well as a lot of specific jargon to the industries he served,” Moore said. “The biggest challenge with Ted’s resume was that there was no clear job target. We needed to get his immediate job goals in the forefront.”

“I had some experience with Ladders as an executive at a small firm where I was also doing recruiting for that company,” Ted said.

He decided to try out Ladders’ free resume critique. Ted liked the critique and signed up for the full resume service with a professional resume writer. “I was very aware of recent trends in careers, as I have stayed on top of all of this closely. I’ve had life coaches and all that, so I know I needed a good set of eyes to get my resume to where I wanted it to be.”

Enter Ken Moore.

Through the two-week intake process — a collaborative process between the job seeker and the writer — Moore learned that Ted needed a broad-reaching resume that would highlight a spectrum of marketing and business- development skills. Moore also learned that the job targets were three-pronged, including non-profit, direct marketing and publishing.

“I had spent a lot of time in my career on content, so I took the [intake] questionnaire very seriously,” Ted said. “I wanted to get this process right.”

Adapting the resume after the transaction

Moore was able to get Ted’s resume focused on the p ast 12 to 15 years with an emphasis on business accomplishments, transferable skills and entrepreneurial experience.

“After intake, I was able to highlight Ted’s leadership programs that improved marketing and the bottom line,” Moore said. “I was able to take what he gave me and highlight how he improved processes and procedures, how he consolidated multiple brands in to one, and how revenue targets were hit. For example, in one of his jobs he was able to increase channel spending by 175 percent.”

After the process, Ted noted, “Ken’s version of the resume was a major improvement over what I had. I would recommend this process tremendously, and I would do this again.

“I do think people need to be aware of one thing, however: It’s important that you take ownership of your resume once you’ve had it rewritten.”

Ted continued: “Make sure to tailor your resume for each job and insert industry-specific terminology if you are applying for a job where you’ve had that experience. You need to tweak your resume for every job you are applying to. The resume writer can’t do it for you with every job application.”

“I can’t emphasize enough the value of networking,” Ted said. “While I believe strongly in the importance of an eye-grabbing resume, I know that it is just the thing that gets you in the door, not the end-all-be-all of the process.”

Ted went on to emphasize that his activity in networking circles is what keeps him active in the job hunt. But he also stressed how confident he fe els knowing that his resume now presents the depth of his marketing experience and expertise as crafted by a professional resume service.

“Ken did a good job of distilling lots of diverse experience in to a summary of my whole career,” Ted surmised. “I gained more by doing this than I could have on my own.”